Post-Verdict Settlement in a federal suit in New England on behalf of four terminated employees of a multi-national real estate development company. Because of the confidentiality agreement linked to the settlement the parties’ names may not be disclosed. The plaintiffs had relocated from New Jersey and Pennsylvania and formed a project team under the auspices of a celebrated project director who himself had been wooed to oversee the construction of a major waterfront complex aimed at revitalizing the city. The project funded by the State and private developers was to take several years. Suspicious of questionable bid awards to subcontractors and consultants, the team was discharged for alleged spurious reasons. The development company claimed that either the contracts were at-will, requiring no reason for dismissal, or had never existed for any express duration. Claiming, inter alia, wrongful termination, fraud and breach of contract, defendants offered $90,000 pre-trial and which rose to $150,000 in the midst of trial, but was refused by the plaintiffs. The jury returned verdicts of liability and punitive damages totaling more than $2.6 Million and, after post-trial motions and court involvement the case was settled.

As an adjunct to the above federal litigation, the project director, who had accepted severance pay and reimbursement of relocation expenses when he was let go by the above development company, brought suit in the same federal district court for malicious abuse of process when he was third-partied into the above litigation. This post-verdict suit (the jury exonerated him from any responsibility in the first trial) was settled for $75,000 within a few months of suit and before any discovery was undertaken.